Study: You Could Be A Jerk (And Not Have A Clue)

Researchers at Columbia Business School have revealed an essential truth of life at the office: the boss could be an overly-assertive, insensitive, polarizing jerk and be completely unaware of his or her behavior. That’s news? Perhaps not, but it is a news release from Columbia Business School, where researchers paired up developing professionals for mock negotiations over issues such as licensing rights. After the deal–making, each person answered questions about their own assertiveness and their counterpart’s assertiveness. The negotiators were then asked to guess what their counterpart said about them. The envelope please….The studies found that, generally speaking, negotiators have a lot of work to do in the self–awareness department. For example, one study found that 57 percent of people actually seen by their counterpart as under–assertive thought they had come across as appropriately assertive or even over–assertive. They also found that 56 percent of people actually seen by their counterpart as over–assertive thought they had come across as appropriately assertive or even under–assertive. Wait, there’s more: the researchers found that many people getting assertiveness right mistakenly thought they were seen as pushing too hard.